


Made of Crushed Little Stars

by Birdbitch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 15:31:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13743909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: Luke wants some sense of stability. Wedge wants to know where he fits in.





	Made of Crushed Little Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd (and typed mostly on a cellphone...yikes). Takes place after they've arrived on Hoth. I don't write these characters enough.

Luke should, at this point, know that there’s a difference between when a heat is supposed to happen versus when it actually happens. If he needs an excuse, he has one: so much time was spent on suppressants meant to make him as much of a beta as possible that up until about after Yavin he hadn't really known what it felt like--but it’s a cheap excuse. It’s not like they never ran out of the suppressants or even like they always worked as intended. Realistically, Luke has never had a consistent heat cycle in his life, so there’s no reason to think that it would change after a few months on something legal. 

“You could always try keeping a calendar, to try plotting out how they usually hit,” Leia says once, because that’s what she does, but then it’s not like hers have any rhyme or reason to them, either. 

He’s trying to get better with the lightsaber during his free time when he feels it. It’s early this time after being late the last time. And he wants to ignore it entirely, because by third watch he’s supposed to be suited up and ready to go on flight patrol with Wedge, but very soon it’s obvious that’s not happening. 

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it didn't always remind him of Biggs, but it does. In a sort of daze--the kind heat always brings over him--he makes his way to medical without bothering to shower first. It doesn't matter since everyone already knows, and he doesn't pay attention when people look for maybe a second too long. Chances are, if they both had stayed on Tatooine, he and Biggs might have been mated. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking on Luke’s part, since it’s not like he was the only omega around. Marrying your childhood crush isn’t something that happens. But. He misses Biggs anyway. The medic sends the droid away with a message to Wedge and whichever commanding officer currently is in charge; “Sorry, Commander Skywalker is in heat and will be unable to perform his duties for the next 76 hours more-or-less.” Or something like it--Luke’s never actually seen the message, nor has he ever received one.

He misses pretending to be a beta, even if it was only to avoid being picked up for the Hutts. “Will it always be so...irregular?” he asks the medic.

“It usually levels out after a few cycles.”

“It’s been a few cycles.”

“And your body has been under a lot of stress.” He’s had this conversation before, and hates how people feel it necessary to describe his own trauma to him. Luke knows what’s happened. He was there. He knows what can happen, he’s not stupid. “Do you need to grant anyone access to your suite?”

“Nobody new.”

“Alright. If you’ll just sign the forms giving permission to enter…”

Leia stops by with blankets; Hoth is always too cold, and while they can’t change that, she knows what it’s like to miss the sun. “I can try to find a spare heating unit,” she says. Luke shrugs.

“I’ll probably be fine.”

“Is Wedge still…?”

“I authorized him,” Luke answers. It feels snappish which gets him gloomy; he’s not embarrassed about it, but it feels uncomfortable talking to Leia about Wedge and what they do, even though a lot of the time he’ll slip back into wanting Biggs only, and he knows Leia knows, but. He can’t. He’s already starting to feel cagey and he thinks she must know because she leaves not too long after. 

And then he sleeps, but wakes up feverish. He doesn't exactly smell Wedge through the door--he can’t--but he's aware of him, of where Wedge is hesitating outside, unsure. The implicit permission exists, and Luke trusts Wedge maybe more than anyone outside of Leia and Han and Chewbacca, but for whatever reason the hesitation makes Luke want to preen. He gets up, lets Wedge in himself. “I gave you the access code,” he says, and Wedge shrugs. He’s still in his flight suit, bright orange against the white halls. 

“Wasn't sure if…Well. Gonna let me in, or am I going to freeze out here?”

Luke would drag him in, but it’s not so far into his heat that he’s desperate. Not desperate enough to embarrass them both in front of cadets and ensigns, at least. “C’mon. Leia brought more blankets.”

“Should I grab some?” Should I grab mine? is what Wedge is really asking. Now that he’s there, though, Luke doesn't want him to leave. Ever. 

“No, no. This is...this is fine.” Luke feels sheepish, like he’s jumped the gun or is still a virgin; he usually feels inexperienced at the start of each heat and really, he is, but. “There are protein rations and meal bars, if you’re hungry.” 

“Just had dinner in the mess.”

“In your flight suit?”

Wedge sits down on Luke’s bunk and looks up at him. “Listen, we ought to talk about this.” While you’re lucid. Before we get into anything else. Wedge would smell like the mess hall if he’d been there first, but instead he just smells like the inside of his X-Wing, so Luke figures he must have gotten the message directly to his terminal during flight and come down after landing. 

“I thought we had talked about this,” Luke says. 

“And we have, but I just--” Wedge groans. “I’ve been having second thoughts about whether or not it’s the right thing to do.”

And of course, Wedge knows about Luke’s still persistent hang ups over Biggs. It’s impossible to compete with someone who’s dead. Maybe it’s unfair for Wedge to be filling that role, even if he’s done it again and again. If Luke thinks back to it--past foggy memories, as best as he can--it happened out of the grief and excitement following the Battle of Yavin too quickly. He remembers: sitting with Wedge, apart from the celebration because they had been there, and it could have been them, and he remembers his heat creeping up along the back of his neck, wrapping around and suffocating. He remembers not wanting to ask Wedge, but not knowing who else he could--who else would know? Who else had known Biggs, who else had survived, who else? And what did Wedge see in him besides the same companionship? Now, they know each other, and they have an easy companionship, and maybe the sex complicates it. This, like the conversation about Luke’s inconsistent heat cycles, is one that they’ve had more than once. Sometimes he’s the one with misgivings; he’s used to hearing them from Wedge. It happened, it keeps happening. 

He just doesn’t really expect it to sting, especially now that his heat reminds him as much of Wedge as it does of Biggs.

“We don’t have to keep doing it,” Luke says. He keeps his distance. Wants to disappear into the planet core, even though he has doubts it would be any warmer than the surface. Don’t make me face this, he wants to say. Don’t make me do this alone. “If you’re uncomfortable.”

“I’m only uncomfortable because I don’t know what this is, Luke.” Wedge stands up then, puts his hands on his hips. “It’d be one thing if I thought it was because we were both...you know--”

“I don’t know.”

“If we were both--if we were unattached. But it feels a lot like I’m still a substitute for something else, and it’s been a while. A guy can’t keep feeling like he’s supposed to be someone else.”

“Wedge, you’re not--you’re my best friend--”

“And so’s Solo, and the princess, and I don’t begrudge them for it, but as far as I know, you’re not sleeping with them.”

“I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”

“Maybe you ought to be.” 

“Are you?” 

“Maybe I ought to be, too.” 

Luke waits before saying anything, and then: “You don’t mean that.” 

Wedge looks down. “No. I don’t. But I almost wish I did.” He looks back up at Luke. “I don’t like not knowing what we are. I know we’re friends--but this isn’t really what people who are just friends do. At least, not where I’m from. Maybe it’s different for you.”

“No. No, you’re right. But I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t--I don’t want things to change.” And as soon as Luke says it, he knows it’s the wrong thing to say. Besides, things are always changing. He hasn’t had a moment without change since his uncle got the Threepio and Artoo. The very fact that he’s with Wedge in the first place points out the universe’s desire to keep him in flux, a reminder that things are not stable, that they may never be stable for him ever again. But he wants this: he wants things to remain uncomplicated, even though by nature they’ve been complicated from the start. He knows that soon, he’ll be leaving, even if he doesn’t know when or how--there’s only so much he can learn in one place, and he’s not getting farther in his training with the force by doing the same flight drills over and over again, or by practicing avoiding blaster shots with a visor over his eyes. There can be no real permanency, he’s sure, because of what they are. In a day or two, even, Wedge could be shot out of the sky like he almost was on the Death Star run. Or it could be Luke. 

“You might not really have a choice in that.” Wedge moves past him. “You’ve got a few hours, I’m guessing. I’m going to go take a shower. If you figure out what you want, let me know. Otherwise, I don’t really know what to tell you.”

“Is that it then?” Luke asks. It’s the same snappiness, the same tone he took with Leia, earlier, and he probably should be bothered more but he can’t will himself into caring now. “You couldn’t have brought this up three weeks ago after the last one? Or is it only a problem now?”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Then why not mention it sooner?” It’s a mood swing. He knows it. He recognizes it, knows that he’s already on the verge of tears and misses the old suppressants even more because even if they didn’t work all the time, they were still better than this. It’s embarrassing. Wedge, Luke figures, probably has every right to be bothered. “You should probably go.”

“Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.” Wedge lingers for a moment like he wants to say something else. “I’ll have my comm on,” he says, finally, softly, and then leaves. And then Luke does cry, and feels stupid for it, because they really should have had this conversation about five months ago, and he’s known it and Wedge has probably known it too, but they both frequently need catalysts to talk about anything. He doesn’t know what it was--likely, he thinks, Leia acting in what she probably would have thought of as both of their best interests. But now there’s an ache and he doesn’t want to blame anyone but himself for it. 

It takes about twenty minutes before Luke makes the decision to leave his suite and head towards Wedge’s. The best thing about being a commanding officer, he thinks, is the fact that they’re afforded more privacy than most of the other pilots. He stinks of his heat, and he knows it, is aware now of the extra glances cast his way. Nobody does anything though; he’s Luke Skywalker. He destroyed the Death Star. He knows the force (enough) that he remains unbothered because of everyone else’s assumption that he could, if he wanted, do the same things they’ve seen Darth Vader do. (He doesn’t, exactly, know what those things are.) His cheeks feel hot, skin burning all the way down his chest. And when he punches in the key code to Wedge’s door, the other man is sitting on his bunk completing his daily report. 

Wedge blinks at him, confused, as though he made Luke materialize by wishing it hard enough. “What are you doing?”

“I want to say I’m sorry,” Luke says. He’ll start crying again, he’s sure. He had a reputation on Tatooine for being a big baby, and it feels like everything everyone ever said about him is true. “You’re right--things have been changing--things are changing, and I just--I wanted. I wanted them to not, but it’s. You’re not a substitute for Biggs. I know you think that. You could have said something sooner. It’s not about that. It’s not about him. It feels like I’ve lost almost everyone around me in the past two years, and I’m just--I’m scared.”

“You haven’t lost the princess or--”

“It’s been pretty close, hasn’t it? We’re getting shot at on a regular basis and it’s not like we’re always on the same flight patterns, or shift rotations. I could lose you and not even know.”

“I think you of all people would probably know.”

“Then you could lose me and not know.” 

“You know Luke,” Wedge gets off his bunk, like his body finally remembers it can move. “Maybe you haven’t realized it, but I’d probably know if anything happened to you, too.”

“I must seem like a real jerk. It hasn’t been about replacing Biggs. What we do isn’t--I’m sorry.” 

“Then what is it, Luke?”

“I don’t know.” He avoids looking at Wedge. “What is it to you?”

“You’re more than my best friend. I can’t keep doing this if you don’t feel the same way.”

In maybe another universe, they’re not involved in a rebellion. They met during some kind of trade expo, and Wedge whisked him away. “I like you,” Luke says in this universe. In that other one, he has always had perfectly timed heats. Wedge isn’t a traitor to the Empire; the Empire doesn't exist there. “I felt like I was going to lose my mind.”

“You could have stayed in your room. I was coming back. “

“No, I couldn't have. I hate the idea of you being upset because of me.” Luke rubs at his face. “I feel like an absolute mess.”

“We’re going back to your suite.”

“I don't think I have time to go back.” And he really, really doesn’t. “Wedge.”

“I’ve got you.”

As usual, his heat passes in a blur: holed up Wedge’s suite, pressed skin to skin. Need, holding onto Wedge’s shoulders, wanting to be marked but not asking for it (yet). Waking in the middle of the night, head pounding like he’s hungover, only to feel the hunger lurch in his gut again and moving to the bathroom as not to wake Wedge, but his voice waking Wedge up anyway. Being knotted, aching from it and for it. It’s possible that he mumbles an “I love you” into Wedge’s chest, but he isn't held to repeating it. When the fever breaks, he aims to leave quietly, but Wedge catches him.

“Hey. I know it’s been hard for you.”

“We don't have to talk about it right now.”

“I know, I just don’t want you thinking I ever didn't want this. You.”

Luke dips back down onto the bunk. “I don't want to leave,” he says.

“Then don’t. Stay until you figure out what you want. What this is for you.”

“I want you.”

And it’s true: Luke wants Wedge, and he wants the stars, and he wants whatever this is to stay for a little bit longer.


End file.
